Chamber Choir Claims Kudos at Carnegie

By Stephen Collins '74

They came, they sang, and by all reports, they killed it.

“It was fantastic,” said Nicolás Dosman, choral director, following the Colby College Chamber Chorale performance at Carnegie Hall March 9. “There were people in the balconies, the audience was warm, and the students did a Carnegie-worthy performance. … They did a great job.”

The performers agreed, including Nathan Trivers ’17, who sang bass and accompanied one piece on the piano, and who declared that he was ““exceptionally proud” of the performance.

“It is so cool to be among those responsible for Colby’s 21st-century Carnegie debut,” Trivers wrote in an e-mail, reporting that, with all the excitement and stress, he totally lost his voice and couldn’t speak following the performance. (Good timing.)

Susan Conant Cook ’75, senior philanthropic advisor in Colby’s Office of Gift Planning, attended and said the music was wonderfully performed and the audience was focused and appreciative. “It was the thrill of seeing Colby students performing on an internationally known stage, knowing that these were deeply interesting, complex, and maybe provocative topics and songs,” she said.

The day was full of Colby connections. Student musicians went to lunch with alumni (including a couple of veterans of the Colby College Chorale) in the theater district at Azalea Ristorante, owned by Libby Corydon Apicella ’74. On stage Geronimo Desumala ’06 welcomed the audience, reminisced about his own Colby College Chorale tour in Europe, and introduced the choir.

The chamber choir and accompanying string quartet got a dress rehearsal in before the performance, and Paul Leary, composer of “De Profundis,” attended both the rehearsal and the concert. Dosman said it gave students a special window into the creative process to have the composer offer suggestions and adjustments during rehearsal, then hear the concert and express his pleasure with the results. Leary was a faculty fellow in Colby’s Music Department in 2012-13.

Satisfaction extended beyond those with Colby connections. “It was an inspired performance and an enthusiastic audience,” said Norman Dunfee of Legato Arts, which organized the 2014-15 solo and chamber music series for Carnegie Hall. In an e-mail Dunfee said, “As I listened to the dress rehearsal, I heard the focus and concentration of the ensemble come into play as they realized the magnitude of their project. Sitting in the balcony for the performance, I knew by the time they were in the second work of the program that they were stepping up a notch and communicating directly with their listeners.”